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• Developmental Biology Program

The Lorenz Studer Lab

Our laboratory aims at exploiting recent advances in stem cell biology to develop radically new therapies for degenerative disease and cancer. The main focus in the lab is on the biology and application of human embryonic stem (ES) and human induced pluripotent (iPS) cells. Pluripotent stem cells can provide a truly unlimited source for deriving therapeutically relevant cell types for applications in human disease modeling or regenerative medicine.

View Lab Overview

Research Projects

• Directing Fate and Age of Human Pluripotent Stem Cells
• Modeling Human Disease Using Pluripotent Stem Cells
• Human Pluripotent Stem Cells in Cell Therapy

Featured News

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Publications Highlights

Ciceri G, Baggiolini A, Cho HS, Kshirsagar M, Benito-Kwiecinski S, Walsh RM, Aromolaran KA, Gonzalez-Hernandez AJ, Munguba H, Koo SY, Xu N, Sevilla KJ, Goldstein PA, Levitz J, Leslie CS, Koche RP, Studer L. An epigenetic barrier sets the timing of human neuronal maturation. Nature. 2024 Jan 31. doi: 10.1038/s41586-023-06984-8. Online ahead of print.PMID: 38297124

Hergenreder E, Minotti AP, Zorina Y, Oberst P, Zhao Z, Munguba H, Calder EL, Baggiolini A, Walsh RM, Liston C, Levitz J, Garippa R, Chen S, Ciceri G, Studer L. Combined small-molecule treatment accelerates maturation of human pluripotent stem cell-derived neurons. Nat Biotechnol. 2024 Jan 2. doi: 10.1038/s41587-023-02031-z. Online ahead of print. PMID: 38168993

Fan Y, Hackland J, Baggiolini A, Hung LY, Zhao H, Zumbo P, Oberst P, Minotti AP, Hergenreder E, Najjar S, Huang Z, Cruz NM, Zhong A, Sidharta M, Zhou T, de Stanchina E, Betel D, White RM, Gershon M, Margolis KG, Studer L. hPSC-derived sacral neural crest enables rescue in a severe model of Hirschsprung’s disease. Cell Stem Cell. 2023 Mar 2;30(3):264-282.e9. doi: 10.1016/j.stem.2023.02.003.PMID: 36868194 

Yang L, Kim TW, Han Y, Nair MS, Harschnitz O, Zhu J, Wang P, Koo SY, Lacko LA, Chandar V, Bram Y, Zhang T, Zhang W, He F, Pan C, Wu J, Huang Y, Evans T, van der Valk P, Titulaer MJ, Spoor JKH, Furler O’Brien RL, Bugiani M, D J Van de Berg W, Schwartz RE, Ho DD, Studer L , Chen S. SARS-CoV-2 infection causes dopaminergic neuron senescence. Cell Stem Cell. 2024 Feb 1;31(2):196-211.e6. doi: 10.1016/j.stem.2023.12.012. Epub 2024 Jan 17.PMID: 38237586 

Giacomelli E, Vahsen BF, Calder EL, Xu Y, Scaber J, Gray E, Dafinca R, Talbot K,  Studer L. Human stem cell models of neurodegeneration: From basic science of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis to clinical translation. Cell Stem Cell. 2022 Jan 6;29(1):11-35. doi: 10.1016/j.stem.2021.12.008.PMID: 34995492

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Lorenz Studer, MD

Director, Center for Stem Cell Biology

• The Studer laboratory investigates human stem cells as tools to understand normal and pathological development in the nervous system and to develop cell-based strategies for regenerative medicine.
• MD, Universitat Bern

• BS, Cornell University

Lab Manager

Research Fellow

Research Associate

Senior Research Scientist

Research Scholar

Research Fellow - NYSTEM Training Award at the CSCB

Graduate Student

Graduate Student, Rita L. Montalcini Fellow

GSK Student

Research Technician

Senior Administrative Assistant

• Princeton University

• Connecticut College

• Wellesley College

Program Manager

Research Associate - NYSTEM Training Award at the CSCB

Lab Technician - currently: MD/PhD student

Postdoctoral Fellow

Postdoctoral Fellow - currently: Assistant Professor, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, Cincinnati, OH

Vice President, Director of Medical Strategy at Havas Health & You, New York, NY

Graduate Student – currently: Resident in Radiation Oncology, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center

Postdoctoral Fellow - currently: Neurology resident, Mount Sinai Medical School, New York, NY

Postdoctoral fellow – currently, Assistant Professor, University of Georgia

Graduate Student - currently, Sandler Faculty Fellow, UCSF

Postdoctoral Fellow – currently: Group leader, Helmholtz Zentrum, Munich, Germany

Postdoctoral Fellow - currently: Group leader, Evotec, Hamburg, Germany

Medical Student, Weill Cornell - currently: Physician/Psychiatrist, Ann Arbor, Michigan

Lab Technician - currently: medical student, Harvard University

Postdoctoral Fellow - currently: Senior Machine Learning Engineer - Digital Intelligence at JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Postdoctoral Fellow - currently: Consultant, The Boston Consulting Group

Graduate Student – currently, Director of the Dean's Entrepreneurship Lab at Weill Cornell

Postdoctoral Fellow - currently: Freelance Neurologist and Stem Cell Expert, Germany

Postdoctoral Fellow - currently: Research Investigator, Arvinas,, New Haven, CT

Postdoctoral Fellow - currently Senior Scientist at Neurona Therapeutics Inc

Postdoctoral fellow - currently: Assistant Prof., Soonchunhayng University

Postdoctoral Fellow - currently, Senior Scientist at Amgen

Principal Scientist at AbbVie, Boston, MA

PhD student – currently: Senior Scientist, BlueRock Thearpeutics, New York, NY

Manager, Field Applications - Cell Biology Thermo Fisher Scientific New York, NY

Graduate Student - currently: Senior Scientist, Cellarity

Postdoctoral Fellow - currently: Associate Prof., Johns Hopkins School of Medicine

Graduate Student - currently: Assistant Professor, The University of Texas at San Antonio

Postdoctoral fellow - Currently: Principal Investigator, Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics,

Postdoctoral fellow - currently: Assistant Prof., Helmholtz Institute

Postdoctoral Fellow - Currently: Associate Scientist, Texas BioMed Research Institute, SW National Primate Research Center

Currently, Sr. Director, CNS Bioprocess at BlueRock Therapeutics

Chair, Department of Neurosurgery; Theresa Feng Chair in Neurosurgical Oncology

Postdoctoral Fellow - currently: Principal Investigator, iSTEM, INSERM, France

Currently, Assistant Professor at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine

PhD student – currently, Associate Professor of Stem Cell Biology, University of Copenhagen, Denmark

• Center for Stem Cell Biology
• Center for Cell Engineering
• Department of Neurosurgery
• Gerstner Sloan Kettering Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences

Achievements

• ISSCR Achievement Award (2022)
• Jacob & Louise Gabbay Award in Biotechnology & Medicine (2018)
• Ogawa-Yamanaka Stem Cell Prize, Gladstone Institutes (2017)
• MacArthur Fellow (2015)
• Member, American Society of Clinical Investigation (2014)
• Annemarie Opprecht Parkinson Award, Annemarie Opprecht Foundation (2012)
• Louise and Allston Boyer Young Investigator in Basic Research, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (2005)

Open Positions

To learn more about available postdoctoral opportunities, please visit our Career Center

To learn more about compensation and benefits for postdoctoral researchers at MSK, please visit Resources for Postdocs

Career Opportunities

Get in touch.

• [email protected] Lab Head Email
• 212-639-6126 Office Phone
• 212-717-3642 Office Fax
• 212-639-8510 Lab Phone

Disclosures

Doctors and faculty members often work with pharmaceutical, device, biotechnology, and life sciences companies, and other organizations outside of MSK, to find safe and effective cancer treatments, to improve patient care, and to educate the health care community.

MSK requires doctors and faculty members to report (“disclose”) the relationships and financial interests they have with external entities. As a commitment to transparency with our community, we make that information available to the public.

Lorenz Studer discloses the following relationships and financial interests:

• BlueRock Therapeutics Intellectual Property Rights; Professional Services and Activities
• DaCapo Brainscience, Inc. Equity; Professional Services and Activities (Uncompensated)
• Fujifilm Cellular Dynamics, Inc. Intellectual Property Rights
• Luxa Biotechnology, LLC Professional Services and Activities
• Neurona Therapeutics Equity; Professional Services and Activities (Uncompensated)
• Roche Professional Services and Activities
• Rumi Scientific, Inc. Equity; Professional Services and Activities (Uncompensated)
• Vita Therapeutics, Inc. Equity; Professional Services and Activities (Uncompensated)

The information published here is for a specific annual disclosure period. There may be differences between information on this and other public sites as a result of different reporting periods and/or the various ways relationships and financial interests are categorized by organizations that publish such data.

This page and data include information for a specific MSK annual disclosure period (January 1, 2022 through disclosure submission in spring 2023). This data reflects interests that may or may not still exist. This data is updated annually.

Learn more about MSK’s COI policies here . For questions regarding MSK’s COI-related policies and procedures, email MSK’s Compliance Office at [email protected] .

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Cancer Program

Researchers in the hsci cancer program are working to establish the crucial differences between normal stem cells and their cancerous counterparts..

The goal of the program is to develop therapies that can eradicate cancer cells – and their entire lineage – without harming healthy tissues. This ambitious goal demands a profound understanding of how, precisely, a normal stem cell becomes a cancer cell. Some of the world’s foremost cancer researchers are collaborating across Harvard's schools and hospitals to do just that.

• Identify the critical genes and pathways that distinguish cancer from normal stem cells.
• Pinpoint which of these – in what combination – could serve as candidate targets for therapy.

What we have achieved so far:

HSCI Cancer Program scientists have:

• Isolated normal stem cell populations from intestine and colon tissue, and characterised their molecular profiles extensively.
• Identified and investigated key pathways operating in lung-tumor-propagating cells.
• Demonstrated what factors are required for leukemia stem cell development and survival.
• Clarified the role of a specific mutation that controls signaling in tumor-propagating cells in human pancreatic tumors.
• Developed imaging technologies for visualizing single tumor-initiating stem cells in the laboratory.

Program Leaders:

Carla F. Kim, Ph.D.

Mario Suva, M.D., Ph.D.

Get the latest hsci research news, related news, mutant protein switches sides in melanoma, kara mckinley named packard fellow for science and engineering, kara mckinley receives nih director’s new innovator award, hsci faculty member appointed the inaugural regenerative biology endowed chair at boston children’s hospital.

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